When the truth is found to be lies…
– Grace Slick, The Jefferson Airplane
Now that the smoke has cleared after the media-hyped fight surrounding Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing, maybe we can more rationally reflect on the real issue. The demand that we must “believe the survivors” of alleged sexual assault without question. My 30 years as a State prosecutor taught me that unquestionably believing any victim of any crime is a precarious proposition.
William Dedge spent 27 years in a Florida prison for a sexual battery he may not have committed – because a jury “believed the survivor”! She pointed to him in court and swore he was her rapist. Advancements is DNA testing ultimately freed him. Though the DNA did not conclusively exonerate Dedge it did raise conclusive doubt about the victim’s credibility as to a critical part of her story. Because of that doubt, the State declined to re-prosecute Dedge, and he was released from prison.
Every day throughout the country prosecutors have to sort out false accusations of sexual assault. The provably false accusations in the Duke lacrosse team and University of Virginia fraternity cases are two high-profile examples of what can go terribly wrong by unequivocally “believing the survivors” – especially when the media jackals pounce on the story. I encountered many false allegations of sexual crimes during my career. One stands out.
The victim claimed she was abducted from a restaurant parking lot, and taken to nearby commercial fishing boat by a member of the crew, who sexually assaulted her there. The defendant’s version was that the victim had voluntarily come to the boat for a tryst, but that he was too drunk to “perform” and passed out without having sex. On it’s face, her story sounded credible, so I was prepared to “believe the survivor”.
But then an interesting thing happened. My secretary was perusing the file and, while looking at a photo of the victim taken the night of the alleged crime, noticed something about how she was dressed that raised questions about her version of the event. As a male I wouldn’t have noticed. So I showed the photo, and victim’s description of the events, to other women in the office. They unanimously said the victim’s story had to be BS. So we dug deeper.
Witnesses at the restaurant refuted the victim’s abduction story. The physical layout of the interior of the boat made parts of her story implausible.
But the smoking gun was what the women in our office noticed about how the victim was dressed. The jeans she was wearing were so tight (“painted on” is how my secretary described them) that it would have been impossible for the incident to have happened as the “victim” swore it did. When confronted with the evidence, the victim eventually admitted she made up the “rape” story, so her boyfriend wouldn’t know she had gotten drunk and went to the boat with a man she met at the bar.
Covering up an indiscretion is one reason a woman would lie about sexual assault. There are a others. Financial gain is a powerful motivation to fabricate. The prospect of fame is another. Combine them and the temptation can be overwhelming.
Being hailed a “hero” in the media, with the prospect of a lucrative speaking tour, book deal, TV movie of the week (Anita Hill !), and a GoFundMe campaign is just such a combination. Overlay that with “sexual victimhood” – the moral equivalent of being a holocaust survivor in the eyes of many – and you may even come to believe your own fantasy. Who can honestly say we should unequivocally “believe the survivor” under those circumstances?
But (scream the harridans who have usurped the moral standing of the #metoo movement for political purposes) “She passed a polygraph!” – as if that is a talismanic incantation foreclosing all further inquiry. Those of us familiar with polygraphs (so-called ‘lie detectors’) know that while those machines have investigatory functions, detecting lies is not one of them. They do no such thing, and can easily be “beaten”. I’ve been taught how to do so. Saying we should believe someone merely because they passed a polygraph is like saying we should believe them because Chet the Unicorn does. Actually …. that is unfair to Chet !
Then there is the flexible definition of ‘sexual assault’ espoused by those with an agenda. There is a legal definition, of which I’m familiar – but that is apparently not the universal standard. One supposedly “credible” study purportedly showed an uncomfortably high percentage of college women reported they had been sexually assaulted while they were students. At least it was high until you looked at how sexual assault was defined in the questionnaire.
“Comments about your appearance that made you uncomfortable” was included in the definition. Under that standard a man telling his significant other that her dress does make her ass look fat has committed a “sexual assault”, rather than just attempted suicide.
Which brings us to the results of another social experiment. Women were first shown photos of men, and asked to rate them as ‘attractive or unattractive’. The women were subsequently shown videos of those men making comments to women, and asked for their response to the comment. . The result was that in almost 100% of the cases, women distinguished “inappropriate sexual comments” from “flattering flirtation” based on whether they found the man attractive. That is the very antithesis of an objective standard upon which legal sanctions can be based. Imagine the outcry from women if the credibility of sexual assault victims was based on whether they were attractive enough to be assaulted.
I have a wife, three granddaughters, and many women colleagues/acquaintances, everyone of whom says they’ve known women who would lie about sexual assault. One of my favorite comedians, Chris Rock, does a routine about the difference between how men and women lie to each other. He says men tell a lot of small lies and women tell fewer – but women’s lies are bigger, such as “It’s your baby!” And we’re supposed unquestioningly “believe the survivors”?
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.